MediaSport: Capitalism, Media, and the Commodification of Sport
This essay examines the complex, interdependent relationship between professional sports, mass media, and corporate capitalism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Drawing on scholars including Real (1998), Hughes and Coakley (1984), McKay and Miller (1991), Jackson and Hokuwhitu (2002), and Hovden (2003), the paper argues that what Real terms "MediaSport" is simultaneously exploitative and symbiotic. The essay analyzes how the commodification of sport reduces spectators to marketing tools, reinforces and undermines gender stereotypes, and appropriates indigenous cultural identities — as illustrated by the commercialization of the Maori haka in New Zealand. It concludes that MediaSport's considerable power can be redirected toward positive social ends if consumers and media producers remain critically self-aware.
- Sports, Media, and Capitalism in the Modern Era: Historical rise of corporate infiltration in professional sport
- The Commodification of Sport and Its Effect on Spectators: How spectators become marketing targets and grow complacent
- MediaSport as a Parasitic and Symbiotic Relationship: Real's MediaSport concept and its dual exploitative nature
- Gender, Sexualization, and Women in MediaSport: Contradictory media treatment of female athletes and the WNBA
- Race, Identity, and Cultural Exploitation in MediaSport: Maori haka commercialization and indigenous identity in sport
- Harnessing MediaSport for Positive Social Change: Case for critical awareness and constructive use of MediaSport
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What makes this paper effective
- Integrates multiple scholarly sources across different national contexts (Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Europe), giving the argument genuine international scope.
- Balances critique with nuance — the paper acknowledges that MediaSport is simultaneously exploitative and beneficial rather than presenting a one-sided condemnation.
- Uses concrete examples (the WNBA's struggle for coverage, the commercialization of the haka, corporate logos on jerseys) to anchor abstract theoretical claims about capitalism and media.
- Moves logically from broad economic critique to specific social dimensions — gender, race, and identity — before arriving at a constructive conclusion.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of multiple theoretical perspectives around a single organizing concept — Real's "MediaSport." Rather than treating each source as a separate point, the writer weaves them together to build a layered argument, using each scholar to advance or complicate the central claim about the commodification of sport.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a historical framing that establishes what is new about modern sport, then defines the MediaSport concept. It proceeds through three analytical dimensions — spectator exploitation, gender representation, and racial/cultural appropriation — before closing with a normative argument about critical media literacy. The structure moves from description to analysis to prescription, a classic academic essay arc.
Sports, Media, and Capitalism in the Modern Era
Sports have been enjoyed as a form of entertainment at least since the times of the ancient Greeks. The perfection of the human body through athleticism is likewise nothing new. Team sports and leagues have been part of — at least male — communities throughout the modern era. However, the role sports play in the twenty-first century is qualitatively different from the role sports played in the past. Even a hundred years ago, athletes who did earn money did not earn enough to make their sport a full-time job. Elite athletes now are not merely eking out a living; they are signing multi-million dollar contracts that tie them to teams. Corporate sponsorship and celebrity endorsement advertising supplement their already substantial salaries further. It is the latter — the corporate infiltration of sports — that is a phenomenon unique to the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The relationship is fostered and nurtured by the media, creating a complex web in which athletes, the media, and capitalist enterprise are entangled.
The relationship between sports, the media, and capitalism is both exploitative and symbiotic. What Real (1998) calls "the institutional alignments of sports and media in the context of late capitalism" is taken for granted so much around the world that spectators do not seem to notice or care about the extent of the problem (p. 15). While athletes surely benefit from the injection of financial resources into their profession, the spectator is reduced in many cases to a marketing tool. The athletes may be the ones wearing corporate logos on their jerseys, as they do in Australia. As McKay and Miller (1991) note, such blatant corporate branding has transformed the character of sports in Australia. "The once hegemonic amateur ideology has become increasingly marginal and residual… most amateur and semiprofessional men's and women's sports have also become reliant on corporate support" (McKay & Miller, 1991, p. 7). The same can be said for sports in nearly every region of the world, save for pick-up games played casually on the street.
The Commodification of Sport and Its Effect on Spectators
Hughes and Coakley (1984) illustrate one of the ironies of the commodification of sport. In the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, spectators have become deluded regarding their own athletic capacity and sometimes imagine themselves as equally capable of greatness as an elite athlete. "Many of the viewers of media sporting events are not drawn to those events by their respect for and appreciation of excellence," note Hughes and Coakley (1984, p. 59). "Quite the reverse, they are drawn precisely by the belief that anyone can play and there is nothing special about those who do, at least nothing special enough to discourage active emulation" (Hughes & Coakley, 1984, p. 59).
Thus, the consumer is diminished not only in the sense of being an easy marketing target but also in the sense of becoming genuinely uncritical. The commodification of sport is more a mirror than it is a cause, however. Sport is not the only arena in which mass media harnesses its enormous money-making power at the expense of cultural taste. Music is one of the most noticeably affected fields at the professional level; the commodification of music represents an equally parasitic relationship between itself and the media as professional sports.
MediaSport as a Parasitic and Symbiotic Relationship
The relationship between media and sports can be considered both parasitic and mutually beneficial. Real (1998) refers to it with a single term: MediaSport. The term reflects Real's (1998) observation that MediaSport is a kind of pastiche — a distorted commercial art form. Sound bites, images of attractive athletes, highlight reels, and commentators' voices all come together in a cacophony of capitalism. As Real (1998) claims, MediaSport "can make significant positive contributions" in the sense that sports are healthy and enjoyable to watch, and elite athletes deserve to be recognized and compensated well for their talents (p. 26). The athletes are not being victimized in this sense; they are surely benefiting financially by doing what they love most.
However, "because of institutionalized capitalist priorities, there is the danger of mindless, misdirected adoration and devotion toward activities and heroes that can so quickly become violent, exploitive, greedy, and narcissistic" (Real, 1998, p. 26). The fan culture that grows up around MediaSport is a curious social phenomenon. While there were no doubt fans of ancient Greek athletes who cheered or booed from the stands, the obsession with sports in modern society is unprecedented. Hovden (2003) points out an even more potentially destructive facet of MediaSport: the "sexualization and erotization of women's sport and female athletes" (p. 11).
References
Hovden, J. (2003). From equality and justice — to difference and profitability. Paper presented at Gender and Power in the New Europe, the 5th European Feminist Research Conference, Lund University, Sweden.
Hughes, R., & Coakley, J. (1984). Mass society and the commercialization of sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1(1), 57–63.
Jackson, S., & Hokuwhitu, B. (2002). Sport, tribes, and technology: The New Zealand All Blacks haka and the politics of identity. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 26(2), 125–139.
McKay, J., & Miller, T. (1991). From old boys to men and women of the corporation: The Americanization and commodification of Australian sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8(1), 86–94.
Real, M. R. (1998). MediaSport: Technology and the commodification of postmodern sport. In L. A. Wenner (Ed.), MediaSport (pp. 14–26). Routledge.
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